As long as I can continue to write, I will do my best to be informative until Mark returns or closes down the site permanently. Starting Friday in St. Louis, the Dodgers begin a 10-game road trip, their longest of the season.
They play the Cardinals, Braves and the Rays, three of MLB’s hotter teams. Last time they saw the Cards, they swept them in Dodger Stadium. But the team taking the field for St. Louis now is a different animal. For one thing, they are hitting. Nolan Arenado has suddenly caught fire. And when he is like that, he can carry a team on his back.
Paul Goldschmidt has been heating up lately too. He recently had a three-homer game. Jack Flaherty’s last outing, he looked like an Ace finally. They will not be so easy to sweep in St. Loo. It is a four-game series Thursday through Sunday . Do not let the Card’s sitting in last place fool you. They can be a dangerous team.
Then they head to Atlanta to take on the first place Braves, who have won only one less game than the Dodgers. The Braves are second in the majors in hitting. And they have exactly the same number of home runs as the Dodgers, 71. The second rating comes because of the team OPS. They and the Rays are the only two teams with an OPS over .800. Where the Braves are hurting is in their starting rotation. Strider and Morton are the only two of their original rotation still healthy. But across the board, the rest of the staff is pitching well.
Their hitters are the same ones who bested the Dodgers in the 21 playoffs. Without Joc Pederson of course, but with some additions, Kevin Pillar, Sam Hilliard, and a new SS, Orlando Arcia, who is crushing the ball right now. Pillar is hitting .270 with 5 long balls. Atlanta will be a tough test.
Then we come to the Rays. Tampa Bay has simply been the best team in the majors this year. The team is hitting .278. They also hit the long ball with 85 so far. They steal bases, 40, and have the highest OPS in baseball .858. They have 5 players hitting over .290. The biggest hole in their lineup is Brandon Lowe who is hitting .197. But Lowe also has 7 homers and 22 driven in. So he can hurt you. Their best hitter so far is their DH, Harold Ramirez who is hitting .324. Do not fall asleep on these guys. They win close games.
The team ERA is 3.30 and they have a WHIP of 1.15. Solid numbers. Dodgers on the other hand have a 3.96 ERA and a 1.23 WHIP. They have solid starters led by their Ace, Shane McClanahan, who is 7-0 with a 2.30 ERA. Zack Elfin and Drew Rasmussen are also in the rotation. Their closer is Jason Adam who has 5 saves. They can beat you with offense, defense, and pitching. No easy task for the Dodgers. Well, that is a little preview of what is coming up. Believe me, the Dodgers absolutely need to play their best baseball on this trip or it could be an unmitigated disaster.
Discussion (25)
Disagree, not disagreeable
Teddy Baseball meets 16 y.o. Mike Piazza.
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTREJjLBM/
Forgot to salute Victor Gonzales. He entered the game with the bases loaded and nobody out.
Pop up. Strikeout. Fly out.
Outman and Covey were the standouts in this game, but VGon keeps delivering the goods. Mark described him as “a Godsend.”
He was clutch.
Miller has looked really good tonight pitching into the 6th inning. OKC up 3-1. OKC wins it late 5-1. Miller gets his first win.
Mark, I hope you hang around so I can learn of your success at achieving Sinus Rhythm! I also greatly enjoy your site and your love of the Dodgers. I too, missed a couple of days in SF Giants country visiting my daughter and watching Little League and my grandson (what fun). I am disMAYed at the elbow news. After all that time and his work to be great. Sometimes, you just need to point the steering wheel straight ahead and persevere. I wish a solid road trip for our team, better health for those who need my luck. Please recharge Mark, the mission is not complete.
May is headed to the IL with a flexor strain in his right arm per Roberts. Gavin Stone will most likely be first man up. It would not surprise me to see them trade for a starting pitcher come July.
05/17/23 Los Angeles Dodgers placed RHP Jimmy Nelson on the 60-day injured list. Right elbow inflammation.
05/17/23 Los Angeles Dodgers optioned LHP Justin Bruihl to Oklahoma City Dodgers.
05/17/23 Los Angeles Dodgers selected the contract of RHP Dylan Covey from Oklahoma City Dodgers.
Politics should not be in sports.
Sanity has prevailed:
https://clutchpoints.com/dodgers-news-los-angeles-makes-pride-night-decision-after-controversey
Wow. I got busy for a couple days and seemed to have missed a lot.
I hope Mark reconsiders.
I hope Dustin May isn’t done for the season.
I hope marketing departments would stop trying to make political/ideological motives part of their strategy.
I don’t do boycotts. I typically ignore most BS. If I stopped consuming every product where I disagreed with something the company did, I’d have to go back to being a hunter gatherer.
That said, my friend owns a sports bar and he told me the other day that Bud Light sales are down about 85%. Coors Light and Mexican Lagger sales are way up (ironically, some brands that are also owned by the same company that owns Budweiser). I’ve owned many businesses over the years. I would never mix politics with business. Well, unless it was occasionally comping a local city councilperson a dinner. That’s just smart. But why make controversial decisions that alienate whole swaths of your clientele? It’s perplexing to me.
Por lo que se ve, todos esos ex Dodgers que trae ahora Minnesota ( Farmer, Gallo) otro de otros equipos fueron vacunados vs el virus del ponche. Nos quedamos con los contaminados (Taylor, Thompson, Barmes) es lastimoso verlos perdidos en el plato (desde luego dicho con todo respeto y desconociendo las situaciones internas y personales de los peloteros). Sin embargo yo considero que 40 juegos (o entre 50 y 70 turnos ) es más que suficiente para ellos (se ve poquita mejoría), si esos cabrones que mencioné antes y otros hubiesen estado a la mitad de como están ahora el año pasado, todo sería diferente. Solo mi opinión.
May out with right elbow pain. Well!
For the folks who haven’t followed this blog long I wouldn’t worry too much about Mark shutting the site down. He threatens to do this frequently (I can recall at least 2 or 3 times in the past) but it never comes to fruition. He seems like an good overall guy but does seem to have bit of an ego and I think he likes to hear people beg him not to do it. I honestly don’t mean this to be negative over the years I’ve grown to like Mark a lot more than I did initially. This is just what I’ve observed over the years.
Thanks for stepping up to the plate Bear.
Dodgers select the contract of RHP Dylan Covey, he is not on the 40-man, so a corresponding move will have to be made.
Tuesday scores
Oklahoma City 4, Sugar Land 3
Corpus Christi 7, Tulsa 3
West Michigan 11, Great Lakes 10
Visalia 16, Rancho Cucamonga 7
Wednesday schedule
3:05 p.m. PT: Great Lakes (Maddux Bruns) vs. West Michigan (Wilkel Hernandez)
4:35 p.m.: Tulsa (Emmet Sheehan) at Corpus Christi (Julio Robaina)
5:05 p.m.: Oklahoma City (Bobby Miller) vs. Sugar Land (Kyle McGowin)
6:30 p.m.: Rancho Cucamonga (Jared Karros) at Visalia (Joe Elbis)
Believe me, THEY absolutely need to play their best baseball againts the Dodgers too because it could be an unmitigated disaster por them as well.
Eric my friend. I noticed you’d stopped posting, and felt sad.
You are well liked here because you are passionate and humble at the same time.
Don’t take things so personally, but at the same time maybe try to not to make the same point over and over….
You won’t catch me doing that with my prediction about underestimating the .500 Diamondbacks!!!
Hope you’re doing well pal
Michael – you are a good man.
Time certainly flies by. Hard to believe it’s just over a year ago that we shared some food and a game with Patch and the much missed B&P!
Thanks for all your hard work here, and I actually think it’s done you good – you are certainly much more mellow than when you first Posted here lol.
It goes without saying that I love this place and the interaction with fellow fans, and it is actually amazing that Mark has done this for as long as he has.
Give him some time
Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence what the hell are we doing here????
EARLY GAME
3:10ET
Dodgers Lineup vs Twins Sonny Gray:
Betts RF
Freeman 1B
Smith C
Muncy 3B
Heyward DH
Vargas 2B
Outman CF
Taylor SS
Thompson LF
Dustin May P
Thx for stepping up Bear. This is the source for Dodger intel.
You got something on Piazza in the files? Going thru your catcher’s article got me thinking back to those ‘90’s teams.
Mikey P was the best pure hitting catcher since Bench. He was off the charts hot in ‘97. Wished he’d stay but, so many we can say same thing – what if?
So now I see that Pages was promoted to OKC too….. The cavalry?
This is the BEST Dodger site. Only one I really frequent except Dodgers.com
It would suck if it were no more.
Met Mark at Vero Beach in 2008, (that was the game Scully coined “public enemy #1…), good dude…..hope this sticks around…
May Day today.
Just saw the news that Mark might shut down LADT. I sure hope not, but he obviously puts a lot of effort into it and there is more to life. Hope his back gets better.
If something I wrote might have contributed to the situation, I sure regret that. I hope that Mark and Old Bear and the other regulars know that we LADT fans come here because we appreciate their efforts so much.
As for the Dodgers, it seems that Mark was right that DeLuca may be on a faster track than Pages. DeLuca just got promoted from Tulsa to OKC, not unlike Outman last season. Pages is thought to have the greatest potential of the OF prospects (including Outman) but he is younger and apparently not fully cooked. It’s almost as if the Dodgers brass thinks that progress is linear.
I enjoy writing about baseball. It is something I never ever thought I would do. When Mark asked me back in 2020, I did not really know how to approach the task. But loving baseball history as I do, researching a reporting on Dodgers of the past seemed the easiest task for me. If it is indeed coming to an end, I will feel a little sad. I met a few of the posters here, nice guys and we all loved talking baseball. We got to know each other a little and that makes it easier to understand what they feel about the game and the team. I met up with Mark twice. And in person, he is a lot like me, just a big ol Teddy Bear, but he is dead serious about his company, and his family. I believe this blog for him was a work of true love for the team and the game. For him keeping it up and running for so many years is truly a tribute to his dedication to the site and the Dodgers. Things are happening in the world that have changed the face of sports and lately, the Dodgers. Some of these changes are very hard to embrace.